Members of the Down Community Health Committee (DCHC) and residents from the Downe Hospital catchement area travelled to Parliament Buildings yesterday (Tuesday 21 April) to meet representatives of the  NI Assembly Health Committee in relation to their concerns about the future of services at the Downe Hospital in Downpatrick.
The final outcome was that they were heartened that the two Assembly Health Committee members present fully agreed with their arguments and indicated against a backcloth of a failing health system in Northern Ireland that something needed to be done… urgently.
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Campaigners and politicians supporting Love the Downe at Stormont.[/caption]
The DCHC representatives Eamonn McGrady, chairman and Ann Trainor, committee member, made short presentations to the Stormont Health Committee members. The meeting was chaired by South Down MLA Chris Hazzard. Around 50 local supporters from Downpatrick, Newcastle and Ballynahinch and other small towns and townlands packed into a committee room to hear the proceedings. Also, three local schools (De La Salle Secondary, St Mary’s High School and Blackwater Integrated College) also sent strong representation in support of the #Love the Downe campaign.
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Eamonn McGrady, Chairman of the Down Community Health Comittee, with Ann Trainor, committee member, pictured on the steps of Parliament Buildings at Stormont before a health meeting.[/caption]
Eamonn McGrady, Chair of the DCHC,  highlighted the key concerns of people across Down District. He said: “The new Downe Hospital opened in June 2010 at a cost of £65 million. It was to be an enhanced local hospital with 24-hour A+E services, a coronary care unit, and shortly after it opened one ward closed. The old Downe Hospital had 46 functioning beds and had the great respect and support of our community.
“On the 16 December last, we had an A+E crisis when the hours were cut due to the lack of middle grade doctors reflecting a shortage across the UK. We live in a dispersed rural area and  we now have a minor injuries unit and the A+E closing at 8pm and patients have to go to Dundonald during out of hours.  We just don’t get the same services that other people in Northern Ireland get despite the cuts. 22% of the  users of the Ulster Hospital in the South eastern HSC Trust area come from East Belfast area which is in the Belfast Trust.
“We have our A+E cut, coronary care closed, beds removed, and many elderly people are faced with the trauma of these changes. There are issues with the ambulance service and quite honestly we do not need issues flagged up in the press repeatedly. It undermines what we are trying to defend and build on. The bottom line is what people want – after all they are the rate and tax payers who pay for this and should have a say in their local health delivery.
“There is no proper transport link to the Ulster Hospital from Downpatrick and the surrounding area. People have to take a bus to Belfast and get a town bus up to the hospital and this journey could be well over three hours one way. There are six acute hospitals in Northern Ireland and if one has to be closed then there needs to be an open discussion, not salami slicing of services.
“The NHS health system is clearly failing. It should be free of at the point of charge where you are treated. There needs to be an open and fair system of checks and balances set up such as a Health Ombudsman similar to that of the police.
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“It should have statutory powers. We therefore ask Stormont politicians to exert their influence over the Health Board, the Trusts, and other agencies so that positive change can take place, change that is fair and equal and not loaded in favour of the big population conurbations.
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Conor Curran, De La Salle High School, Claire Curran, St Mary’s High School and Grace Stewart, Blackwater Integrated College pictured after they made their presentations at a health meeting in Stormont.[/caption]
“It was excellent to see a constructive engagement today which is very encouraging. But in the final analysis, if we have to put 20,000 people on the steps of Stormont we will do it. This anxiety over services has gone on for too long and is causing much distress in our community.”
Former DCHC Chairman Cecil Maxwell also speaking at the presentation, said: “Over the past three decades I have spent weeks talking to John Compton, former Down Lisburn Trust chief executive and every direct rule minister lobbying for a new Downe Hospital. We have a strong cross-community campaign going on our district and we all recognise that there has been no real improvement in our rural main roads in Down District for over 40 years.
“We have no motorway or dual carriageway.  I was actually in the old Downe Hospital as a patient the day  the day it was closed. The coronary care unit was overnight turned into a store room. We need a coronary care unit in the new Downe Hospital. It is vital. The elderly are all agreed that running to Dundonald is very tiring and stressful, and if you are ill it can also be counter-productive. So I ask for consideration on this important service which has been decimated over the past couple of years. Patients must come first.”
DCHC campaigner Ann Trainor, who has fought for local health services for 30 years, said: “22,000 people supported our #Love the Downe march and rally recently. The people have clearly spoken with their feet.
“People power has demanded that we have better and key services in our new Downe Hospital ie 24-hour A+E and coronary care and wards with beds. This is a basic human right.”
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Campaigners, pupils and politicians discuss the services at the Downe Hospital.[/caption]
Anne Trainor further highlighted the issue of the Downe A&E being closed on a weekend when sportsmen and women have to travel to Belfast to have injuries attended, added that there were farmers and fishermen who were now in a more difficult position facing long journeys to Dundonald or Belfast for treatment.
South Down MP Margaret Ritchie addressed the Stormont Health Committee members and said: “My parents were both nurses in Downpatrick and I understand how much this hospital means to the people of the area. There is a clear need for an enhanced local hospital here and we are being ignored. Key services are being reduced and we are deeply worried about this. Many local families have strong attachments to the hospital and this will not lessen.
“People in the Down District area demand accessibility of services and equity of care. They are aware of the erosion of services and key  services being moved to the Belfast hospitals. So we want a restoration of services at the Downe Hospital.
“In fact if the theatres at the Downe Hospital were activated it may reduce the pressure on the Belfast hospitals. But Downpatriock is not being allowed to do that. Therefore we need a full examination of all of this in order that the Downe Hospital can continue to do what it was originally built for.”
Unison Down and Lisburn branch secretary Marion Ritchie and a Downe nurse, cited the experience she personally had, with a 93-year old relative who took ill and had to go to the Ulster Hospital. She said: “Services at the new Downe have been drastically reduced. This is very disturbing. The vulnerable in our society are suffering.
Nurse Ritchie said: “She had to stay overnight in hospital. She had fallen and needed her head wound attended. The cut had to be stapled and the Downe GP said he could not do that at the A+E. We had to go to Dundonald.
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Back row, South Down MLA’s SÂŽean Rogers and Karen McKevitt, Margaret Ritchie MP, Fergal McKinney, Health Committee, and Cecil Maxwell, former Down Community Health Committee chair, with, front row, Eamonn McGrady, DCHC chair, Maeve McLaughlin, Stormont Health Committee chair, Anne Trainor, DCHC member, and Chris Hazzard MLA.[/caption]
“It was a very poor road to travel on to get there and we were put in a room which literally felt like limbo land. You are not actually registered in the hospital until the ambulance staff sign you over and they had to stay with her until then. This was a huge waste of time for the ambulance staff.
“My relative needed to go to the toilet and I had to go and find a camode. I also spent the night repeatedly switching off a monitor where the alarm went off automatically which was attached to my relative.
“Through this time I could hear the groans and cries of other patients. The staff were running around constantly and by the end of their shift in the morning they looked exhausted. It was 5.30pm before we got back to the Downe Hospital and received prompt and excellent care. This sort of thing is a regular occurance at the Ulster Hospital I understand.”
Chair of the Stormont Health Committee, Maeve McLaughlin, was supportive of the concerns of the DCHC campaigners.
She said: “I appreciate it is not easy to share your personal stories and I recognise this. The real challenge is to have a better health service while it is delivering equality. Currently we have duplication, confusion, lack of transparency, and the Trust appear to be cutting services while people are calling for the system to protect services.
“Fundamentally we need a radical overhaul of our health service. Even I am confused by what is going on. There needs to be a full overhaul of the roles of the Minister, the Department, the Trusts, the Ambulance Service. I have already looked at the Scottish model and that seems to be a strong option.
“We as representatives of the Stormont Health Commmittee will certainly carry this back to the full committee for their consideration. My door is open anytime to discuss this with the DCHC. And it would also be useful to invite the DCHC to a stakeholder meeting on 30 May. We need to have a hard look at this as the current system is not delivering. It is an enormous challenge. I am on the same side as you.”
Fergal McKinney, Stormont Health Committee member said: “I attended the Love the Downe rally in Downpatrick on 14 February  and I have not seen anything like it in years. The community clearly strongly supports this campaign and I thank the DCHC members for their complete overview of the basic problems they are facing. This meeting should actually have been better in retrospect be held in the Long Gallery given the support here today.
“What we are looking at is a strategic failure in our health service. Investment in the Downe Hospital seems inadequate, essential services are being cut, and it is a failure of the Transforming Your Care (TYC) policy. TYC is clearly not working. There is not enough funds for this to happen. And we have to ask, who is in fact running the health service?
“The people in the Downpatrick and wider area and not expected to have reduced services and be forced to fight for their rights. They are suffering twice.
“We have to deal with this at a strategic level. It seems that we have lost sight of what this service is all about… the patient.”
There was a further discussion following this meeting and forthright views were shared. Pupils from the three schools also made important presentations covering a wide range of issues and problems caused by the removal of A+E and coronary care services.
Clare Curran from St Mary’s High School said: “The Downe Hospital is party of our community. My grandmother was there three times and had she to travel to Dundonald in an emergency it may not have been such a positive outcome. And my grandfather who is 95 would not be alive today were it not for the Downe Hospital.”
Conor Curran from De La Salle High School said: “If you have to call an ambulance to Downpatrick there is a possibility that the Ambulance Service may be busy, and this is complicated by the fact that the hospitals in Belfast are a long way away over poor roads.”
“Grace Stewart from Blackwater Integrated College said: “The government is letting our £65 million new hospital go unused and excellent hospital services have been lost or reduced. We must secure the health services we need and deserve.”
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